In a world already bogged down with memoirs from people who probably didn’t need to write them, Eric Trump is now throwing his hat in the ring, too.
The son of President Donald Trump announced this week that “Under Siege”—which will be released in October—will reveal the juicy details of a purported calculated attack from the media, courts, and Democrats against the Trump family.
“From raids on his childhood home, Mar-a-Lago, to near assassination attempts, from Russiagate to cold and corrupt court rooms, the fake news media, censorship, and character smears—this wasn’t just an attack on a president, or even his family,” the memoir press release said. “America itself was under siege.”
President Donald Trump signs copies of his book, “Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again.”
On one hand, it might be a book worth renting from the local library—assuming it has the federal funding to carry it—just to see how one of the president’s children tries to justify an impeachment and a mugshot.
But if it’s anything like his father’s works, it might not even be worth reading for free.
After Donald published his book “Save America” in September 2024, the Washington Post unabashedly called the pages a collection of “occasional unhinged ramblings.”
“There probably aren’t more than a few hundred words total in this shiny work of propaganda, but if ‘Save America’ could be said to have a plot, it’s the epic struggle between Trump’s desire to exalt himself and his instinct to denigrate his enemies,” wrote book critic Ron Charles.
And for those who recall, Donald’s 1987 book, “Art of the Deal,” was written with journalist Tony Schwartz, who regretted his contributions later on.
"I knew this was a bad guy when I did the book," Schwartz admitted on CBS’ “Takeout” podcast in 2019. He said that he ultimately did it for the cash, which he called “blood money.”
It’s unclear if Eric has employed the help of a ghost writer to pen his diatribe or if the world will be lucky enough to get a taste of his writing chops. But it’s certainly not unlike the Trump family to delve into areas they’re not quite well versed in.
Even Eric’s wife, Lara Trump, has dabbled in her own patriotic athleisure brand as she pursues a career in singing Christian ballads and cover songs.
In Donald Trump’s world, nothing says freedom like targeting art and museums.
In the wake of recent attacks on the Smithsonian’s choice to feature more than just straight, white artists, the White House has created a detailed list of artists it deems too woke.
“This is ‘art’ from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery commemorating the act of illegally crossing the ‘exclusionary’ border,” a White House X account wrote alongside a painting by Rigoberto A. Gonzalez.
“This is what President Trump means when he says the Smithsonian is ‘OUT OF CONTROL.’”
The painting in question features a realistic depiction of a family of four at the southern border wall as a mother, holding a baby in her arms, scales a ladder.
But the White House didn’t stop there.
In this June 25, 2018 photo, visitors sit near a print by Mexican-American, Los Angeles-based artist Ken Gonzales-Day, who was exhibiting his 2006 series "Erased Lynchings" at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, which shows a series of photographs of lynchings in which the victim has been digitally removed from the image.
In their attempt to drive home the right-wing talking point of how crazy and woke the Smithsonian truly is, officials created an entire webpage listing out each piece of art featured at the museum at one time or another that crossed some imaginary line.
The list, it appears, only includes artists who depict people of color or queer individuals. And predictably, the administration made it a point to bash artists who featured immigrants as well.
“A exhibit [sic] at the American History Museum depicts migrants watching Independence Day fireworks ‘through an opening in the U.S.-Mexico border wall’ and says America’s founders ‘feared non-White immigration,’” the White House wrote.
It seems as if the administration takes issue with the statement that the founders painted non-white immigrants in a negative light. Then again, the Trump regime labeled Venezuelan immigrants with no criminal record as dangerous gang members before throwing them into a foreign prison that’s notorious for torturing inmates.
The artwork’s description also points out how Latin American immigrants are often labeled as “invaders.” And with an administration and president insistent on calling them “illegal aliens” while making sweeping generalizations that immigrants coming from the southern border are murderers and rapists, the shoe sure does seem to fit.
But turn back the clock just a few years to Trump’s first term as president, and remember how his administration was pointing fingers at the left for participating in censorship and “cancel” culture.
As always, the projection is strong with Trump and company.
But always eager to find a new bottom, Trump has decided to send Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem south of the border to continue her cosplay parade alongside the prisoners.
Noem is visiting Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador this week to "underscore the importance of our partner countries to help remove violent criminal illegal aliens from the United States,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg. She will tour CECOT, the mega-prison in El Salvador now housing the alleged gang members for a cool $6 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earned the moniker “ICE Barbie” after her widely ridiculed video.
The former South Dakota governor has been working overtime to get the best photo ops possible as she gallivants around the country doing anything other than her actual job. In January, Noem went viral in all the wrong ways for the perfect blowout and impeccable makeup she sported while dressed up as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
Even the usually Trump-friendly tabloid Daily Mail piled on to Noem’s PR stunts and said she was cosplaying as a “Border Patrol cowgirl” while visiting the southern border in February.
But while the unrepentant puppy-killer makes sure the cameras get her best angles, human beings are being held in CECOT, a so-called terrorism confinement center with a history of abuse. These immigrants are being shaved, shackled, dehumanized, and detained far away from their homes.
While Donald Trump and his team are calling this a win and claiming the inmates are all members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang, one woman is crying out for help and insisting her imprisoned brother is innocent.
“He was asking for help. And that help didn’t come from the lips. It came from the soul,” Jare Yamarte Fernandez told the Miami Herald after she recognized her brother Mervin in a video shared on social media.
Adding that her brother has no previous criminal record, she told the outlet, “You know when someone has their soul broken.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem participates in a firefighting drill at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak on March 17 in Kodiak, Alaska.
Over 200 Venezuelans were sent to the maximum security prison without a trial after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which was last used to send Japanese Americans to internment camps after Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941. He later denied invoking the 1798 law to send the immigrants to El Salvador—but paper doesn’t lie, and his signature was seen on official documents available to the public.
After U.S. District Judge James Boasberg blocked Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, all hell seemed to break loose between the judicial system and Republicans.
The president and his allies in Congress have been calling for Boasberg’s impeachment and disbarment, while the judge refuses to let up on his block. As of Monday afternoon, a federal appeals court was considering the Trump administration’s argument to overturn the initial ruling as they push to ship more undocumented immigrants to other prisons.
"There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people," Judge Patricia Millett said during the hearing. "Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act."
As for Noem, the disconnect in perspective is stark. During a Cabinet meeting Monday, she claimed that the intention of the Trump administration’s ongoing sweeping deportation effort is to “get people out of this country that don’t belong here and take them home.”
But when it came to those who have allegedly committed crimes, Noem turned cold.
“We’re not only getting the worst of the worst out, we’re making sure there are consequences for being here and committing crimes in our communities,” she said.
“If you are thinking about coming to America illegally, don’t do it,” Noem warned. “You are not welcome. America has changed, because we are putting Americans first.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly declared martial law Tuesday amid alleged “anti-state” forces that he claimed were plotting rebellion and supporting North Korea, despite offering no evidence.
But roughly six hours after Yoon called martial law and armed forces flooded the streets, the National Assembly voted to end the declaration. Yoon soon faced calls to resign or be impeached. However, an impeachment vote on Saturday failed due to a boycott from Yoon’s party, which was “apparently more concerned about a return to progressive leadership than about Yoon’s actions,” according to The Washington Post. But that seems to have only intensified protests, and the national police have opened an investigation into Yoon for treason.
As the drama continues to unfurl, many Americans are now looking warily toward President-elect Donald Trump, trying to understand how something like this might play out in the states.
Trump has a long history of admiring authoritarians. And in 2020, he deployed the National Guard to break up protestors in Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon, during protests over a police officer’s murder of George Floyd. But while controversial, that wasn’t martial law.
However, Trump also reportedly asked about shooting those protestors but was stopped by skeptics in his administration. Which there will be fewer of this time around. And this year, he openly discussed the idea of deploying the military against “the enemy from within.”
A law expert who wished to remain anonymous told Daily Kos that while there is a small possibility that today's conservative-led Supreme Court would support the precedent of Trump declaring martial law, present concerns are “likely overblown.”
Still, ahead of Trump’s second administration, Daily Kos is taking a look at what martial law might look like—and has looked like—in the U.S.
What is martial law?
Martial law is when the government approves military authority to temporarily step in for civilian government. It’s usually declared during times of war, rebellion, or natural disaster, per the Office of Justice Programs.
Essentially, what happens is that the military steps in to enforce laws and assist local governments in an area in place of local law enforcement. This can also include bringing people accused of crimes before military tribunals—where military officers function as the judge and jury—rather than civilian courts.
Has martial law been used in the U.S.?
Martial law has been declared at least 68 times in U.S. history, with the most recent federal declaration being made in the then-territory of Hawaii during World War II, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning public policy institute.
Following Japan’s devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, military officials were highly suspicious of Japanese-Hawaiians and often doubted their loyalty, journalist Erin Blakemore wrote for History.com. The three-year-long military rule created an oppressive living situation for Hawaiians, especially those of Japanese descent.
While fear of a potential threat from Japan ran high, military control of food rations and a state-wide curfew made day-to-day living stressful as well.
Even photography was banned in certain instances over fears of espionage.
Can a U.S. president declare martial law?
Probably not.
A sitting U.S. president cannot declare martial law in the same way that Yoon did. In the U.S., the president needs approval from Congress first.
However, as Joseph Nunn of the Brennan Center points out, laws surrounding the idea remain murky. Per Nunn’s article, a sitting president “has ample authority under current law to deploy troops to assist civilian law enforcement” (emphasis in original) but not necessarily replace it.
That said, states can—and have—declared martial law more frequently, so long as a state’s declaration does not oppose the Constitution.
As Nunn points out, states have deployed military to step in at the local level to assist in things like natural disasters, which grants some power to military personnel on the ground.
Nunn also told Daily Kos that the history of the United States’ founding goes against the premise of martial law, which was “part of the reason the American Revolution happened,” he explained.
“If you look at the Declaration of Independence, one of the charges that lay at the feet of King George is rendering the military power superior to the civilian [or enacting martial law] in the colonies,” he said. “So, everything about our constitutional system refutes the notion that martial law can exist.”
However, Nunn added that while martial law may be an overblown concern for Americans, the lack of limitations surrounding the Insurrection Act should have people concerned.
“The Insurrection Act gives the president virtually unlimited discretion to use the military as a domestic police force, even if they're operating in a supportive role [with local law enforcement],” he told Daily Kos.
Nunn explains how “dangerous” it can be to send trained soldiers to act as police officers—a role far different from what they are trained to do in war zones.
He argued that the president has “far too much discretion” over when to invoke the Insurrection Act, and that it gives “dangerously broad authority to the president to use the military as a domestic weapon.”
The nonstop news cycle makes it easy to lose track of the why’s and who’s in this issue, so Daily Kos has compiled a quick walk-through history on Trump’s relationships with Ukraine and Russia.
Here’s what you need to know.
The “perfect phone call” scandal
The way the world views Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has changed quite a lot since he first took office in 2019. Since Russia’s invasion of his country in 2022, Zelenskyy has been a praised wartime leader—a huge jump from his time as a comedian who played the piano with his penis—but in 2019, Zelenskyy found himself as a pawn in Trump’s political maneuvers.
That July, Trump swept Zelenskyy up into an international scandal, threatening in a phone call to withhold aid from the Ukrainian president unless he provided dirt on Joe Biden, who had not even won the Democratic nomination yet.
Later in 2019, officials testified before Congress that Trump withheld $400 million in security aid as a means to coerce Zelenskyy to announce Ukraine would investigate Biden for corruption.
Ultimately, this—and plenty more—led to Trump’s impeachment in the House. He was later acquitted by the Senate.
“I’m the only one to get impeached on a perfect phone call, like a perfect phone call,” Trump said laughably in an August 2020 interview with Fox Business.
Historically, the U.S. has provided aid to Ukraine as an incentive for pushing out corruption and promoting democracy. However, Trump’s request positioned Zelenskyy to play the same games of corruption the Ukrainian president was fighting, in exchange for much-needed aid.
The praise-fest
Trump has a laundry list of kind words for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Here are some of the (many) receipts of their love exchange over the years.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius,’” Trump said following the invasion. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine—of Ukraine—Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
Putin is now returning some of the sentiment. In November, Putin said he is willing to reopen the line of communication about ending the war once “courageous” Trump takes office next year.
However, critics have argued that Trump and Putin’s idea of ending the war leans more in favor of the dictatorship claiming Ukrainian land and less in line with the U.S. 's history of supporting Ukraine’s independence.
Trump smears Ukraine
While the U.S. has a long track record of providing support to Ukraine to promote the country’s independence and anti-corruption efforts, Trump has turned his back on the idea of Ukrainian independence from Russia, painting the country as broken and helpless.
In September, Trump dismissed Ukraine as "demolished” and called its people “dead” as he raved about how the country should have given into Russia’s demands sooner.
“If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better,” he continued. “They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”
The incoming president further speculated that Ukraine shouldn’t have fought Putin, saying that “the worst deal would’ve been better than what we have now.”
“Every time Zelenskyy comes to the United States he walks away with $100 billion, I think he’s the greatest salesman on Earth,” Trump said in September, on the campaign trail.
The U.S. has supplied $175 billion of aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, with $106 billion of that going directly to Ukraine’s government.
Notably, Trump has pointed fingers at Ukraine and Zelenskyy for the war while staying mum about any fault Russia might have.
